Easy Come Easy Gaughin

Jeremy Irons

He’s elegant, and menacing. And after he hits you with an ambiguous gaze that refuses to let you know if he is going to greet you or eat you, he starts talking with that oily voice. Scarier than Hannibal Lecter. He won an Oscar for exactly that sort of uncomfortable ambiguity, playing Klaus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune. Regardless of how you feel about spoilers, don’t let anyone tell you anything about the last minute of the film.

He’s the star of the amazing Dead RIngers, playing twins using an early version of computerized camera tracking that’s common now, but was a real wonder than. He plays twin ob/gyns, creating two characters with fully differentiated personalities who run a switcheroo on women to keep their love life interesting, a decision that eventually leads to messy problems. I always found it interesting that when he gave his acceptance speech for the well-deserved portrayal of Mr von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune, he went way out of his way to thank David Cronenberg, the director of the previous year’s Dead Ringers for teaching him so much about acting.

Ten best roles

10) Being Julia 9) The Merchant of Venice 8) Damage 7) Waterland 6) Love For Lydia 5) The French Lieutenant’s Woman 4) Reversal of Fortune 3) Moonlighting 2) Betrayal 1) Dead Ringers

Percentile rating

97.02

Rhys Ifans

He’s Welsh. I remember him mainly as the stoner flatmate in Notting Hill, and I know I have seen him in Human Nature, in which he played some sort of ape-man in an early Charlie Kaufman-written script, and I saw him in what I would consider his most normal-guy role, playing a man who loses his job, and in a drunken state, attaches a large number of helium-filled weather balloons to his Deckchair and sails away into the clouds, only to land in an isolated community. It’s essentially a farcical take on the Man Who Would Be King, as he becomes a community leader even as his old life is coming after him. Supposedly it’s based on a true story, but that probably just means it was based on a news item in which a want-to-be deckchair pilot fell into a tree soon after leaving the ground.

In the films I seen featuring him, he’s not established any kind of persona that really sticks with me. That may be an excellent attribute of his acting chops, but I am not sure it says much about his star power.

Ten best roles

10) Notting Hill 9) Hotel 8) Heart 7) Elizabeth: The Golden Age 6) Janice Beard 45 WPM 5) Twin Town 4) You’re Dead 3) Human Nature 2) Danny Deckchair 1) Once Upon a Time In the Midlands

Percentile rating

79.29

Eric Idle

Speaking of renaissance men. He’s not really a film actor, as such, he’s a very funny member of probably the greatest comedy troupe of all time, a troupe which managed to produce a hilarious TV series along with a couple of the funniest films of all time. But the very nature of what he and his Python cohorts did well (rapidfire gags and non-sequitars and multiple characters, often requiring cast members to play two or more parts in the same scene) seems antithetical to the sort of complex character-building necessary to play the lead in films.

And dear God, has he been in some bad ones, as his best 10 will reveal. It’s no great criticism that he doesn’t score very highly on this list, because he’s been such a comedic success in other areas.

Ten best roles

10) Dudley Do-Right 9) Nuns On the Run 8) Missing Pieces 7) Casper 6) And Now For Something Completely Different 5) Splitting Heirs 4) Mr Toad’s Wild Ride 3) Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life 2) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen 1) Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Percentile score

74.69

Ice Cube

Ice Cube has spent his whole career, first in music, and more often in recent years in film, quietly outshining his colleagues with a higher celebrity profile. But while many people were looking away, he’s accumulated a filmography that would be the envy of many of his peers.

He’s versatile as an actor as well. His ten best roles are roughly split between straight comedy, straight drama, and pure action films. And with his latest move into family comedies, he’s got as wide a demographic fanbase as anybody currently working. And he directs!

In the late 80’s, David Byrne was widely tauted as a renaissance man; Ice Cube could be the closest current thing to Byrne’s earlier takeover of multiple entertainment arenas, and at this point his total body of artistic achievement is likely to outshine Byrne’s.

Ten best roles

10) Anaconda 9) Torque 8) Barbershop 2: Back in Business 7) First Sunday 6) The Glass Shield 5) Dangerous Ground 4) Friday 3) Barbershop 2) Three Kings 1) Boyz n th Hood

Percentile rating

88.69